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School

University of Waterloo

Department

Psychology

Course

PSYCH 101

Professor

Stephanie Denison

Semester

Winter

Description

MODULE 1
Anthropomorphism: the act of treating objects or animals like people
Psychology: the scientific study of behaviour, thought and experience
• Involves the study of behaviour, which can include perceptions,
thoughts & emotions
• It employs scientific method
Scientific Method: a way of learning about the world through collecting
observations, proposing explanations for the observations, developing theories to
explain them & using the theories to make predictions
Hypothesis: a testable prediction about processes that can be observed and
measured (you don’t prove a hypothesis)
• Scientific hypotheses must be testable
Pseudoscience: the ideas that are represented as science but do not actually utilize
basic principles of scientific thinking or procedure
Theory: an explanation for a broad range of observations that also generates new
hypotheses and integrates numerous findings into a coherent whole
• Theories are not the same thing as opinions or beliefs
• All theories are not equally plausible
• A measure of a good theory is not the number of people that believe it to be
true
Biopsychosocial Model: a means of explaining behaviour as a product of
biological, psychological, and sociocultural factors
Scientific Literacy: the ability to understand, analyze & apply scientific information
Critical Thinking: exercising curiosity and skepticism when evaluating the claims
of others, and with our own assumptions and beliefs
• It doesn’t guarantee a correct answer, perhaps an unpleasant one, but it
helps find and justify good answers
Core Set of Habits & Skills for Developing Critical Thinking:
1. Be curious
2. Examine the nature & source of the evidence
3. Examine assumptions and biases
4. Tolerate ambiguity
5. Avoid overly emotional thinking
6. Consider alternative viewpoints Empiricism: a philosophical tenet that knowledge come through experience
Determinism: the belief that all events are governed by lawful, cause-and-effect
relationships
Zeitgeist: a general set of beliefs of a particular culture at a specific time in
history
Materialism: the belief that humans and other living beings are composed
exclusively of physical matter
Dualism: the belief that there are properties of humans that are not material
Psychophysics: the study of the relationship between the physical world and the
mental representation of the world
Clinical Psychology: the field of psychology that concentrates on the diagnosis
and treatment of psychological disorders
Psychoanalysis: a psychological approach that attempts to explain how
behaviour and person